So today is surgery day part duex. Just like Blaster loves the first airplane flight of the day, he also loves to be the first in surgery.

I guess in some sense, that is a good idea. You either get a surgeon that is really on his game vs tired, or one that needs a few warm-up rounds. I am hoping for the former.

Anyhow, after admitting, we trotted down stairs to see the Anesthesiologist, the fellow, the Dr and the OR nurse. I always get an edgy feeling when they don't seem have a firm grasp on the voluminous file on the human. However, today was different. The OR nurse asked a rather strange line of questioning.

OR Nurse: So, you came in last year through the ER room?
Blaster: Yes
OR: And Dr Shon has been your attending physician the entire time?
Blaster: Yes
OR: Strange..LOOONG PAUSE.
Blaster: Why is that
OR: You see, people fly in all around the world to schedule with him, so usually he doesn't have room to see ER patients.
Blaster: Oh, that is because we had a good friend recommend him and we were transferred from po-dunk Southern MD to see him

So last time we did this rodeo, Blaster was in the hospital longer. The nice part about that is they have better IV drugs which respond to Ping-Pong of pain much faster.

Today, we had a wild rollercoaster of pain and sleeping. It seems the initial dose wasn't really getting to the crux of the pain, and luckily the doc was able to adjust the dosing during their follow-up call today. Now the pain is controlled, but we've not got many minutes of lucidity. At this point, it seems all but inevitable that he'll just need to sleep this one off for a few days.

Any competent Orthopedic would have x-rayed you first, to rule out a FX, BEFORE reducing the DL!

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I am not normally one to give Washington DC grandiose props as an area to live. However, I will say that it has been incredibly fortuitous when it comes to medical needs because top-notch medical professionals tend to follow population density. When my competition horse went lame, I had three large vet schools within 2 hours of the house. Ultimately, the horse ended up with the vet that attends to the US Olympic horses.

But let's get back to people. Getting up every few hours for check on deal 'ol Blaster, I've got some idle time to document "who is".
His bio here

Lisfranc injuries occur in approximately 1 in 55,000 people per year. There are varying degrees of injury, making it difficult to classify them

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Given that the US has a population of 330M people, and we assume that 10% have orthopedic injuries in a year, that means roughly 600 Lisfranc injuries annually. So, clearly we are probably going to need someone that does this "routinely". I didn't have any negative findings, which doesn't really surprise me given the closed-nature of the medical industry. However, he's a cross deck of the information that I've found. I realize that rankings are only as good as the survey, but these were some of the bigger rankings.

--Union Memorial Hospital is ranked 31st nationwide for Orthopedics by US News. Dr. Schon is the Director of Foot and Ankle Services

Damn, those injuries look gruesome.. Ankle/feet injuries are the worst (says my doc)... just such a complicated area of the body.

In 2002, I broke my ankle from a XR250 footpeg hammer, looking back I'm happy it was only a broken ankle!

I'm curious what the general consensus is on most protective boot for this sort of injury? I don't know why it would be difficult for a manufacturer to just slide a steel shank up the inboard sides of boots to protect against this seemingly common injury.

He may not be able to respond until he gets his foot out of his mouth.

Re: Tallbastid's question about steel, you can completely immobilize the foot and ankle with protection, but it will transfer and amplify vulnerability elsewhere. Scott may have made the most protective boots, but there are trade-offs. I once horse-shoed the steel shank in a boot with a steel toe cap, around the foot peg. There was still a broken/dislocated toe and other breaks and sprains to the foot and ankle. Had the bent shank and those injuries not occurred, there probably would have been a leg break or knee injury.

Nice work with the cannulated screws. I pestered my foot surgeon until he admitted that the heads were metric size 3 and 4 allens...never know when I might have to get 'em out in a hurry, right?

May the rest of your recovery go smoothly. There's something to be said for an early surgical start time! Also, you know this already...but don't forget to take those laxatives! Goldang opiates turn the bowels to concrete.

So this time last year, I knew exactly where Blaster was--within the circumference of the Tempurpedic mattress. This year, not so much. I imagine it's much like having a kid. They are really easy to watch when they can't crawl. They are pretty much right where you left them. At some point, they become semi-mobile rolling/crawling. While you are happy about their development, your job to track them just got a lot harder.

For starters, they always say you never forget how to ride a bike and apparently, you never forget how to ride your knee scooter either. I've gone to take care of the horse, and came back with the bed stacked with munchies from the kitchen. It almost looked like a squirrel ransacked the candy isle at Walmart.

Secondly, I suspect that trauma to the foot this time is greatly less than when you catapult yourself into mother earth. He's at least 2-3 weeks ahead given the pain management needs.

His sprits are up and the follow up appointment is scheduled for next Tues to get the stitches out